Organizacional

OB: What Is Organizational Culture?


1. Organizational culture—“a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations.”
2. This system of shared meaning is a set of key characteristics that the organization values. The research suggests seven primary characteristics:
a. Innovation and risk taking
b. Attention todetail
c. Outcome orientation
d. People orientation
e. Team orientation
f. Aggressiveness
g. Stability
3. Each exists on a continuum from low to high. Appraising the organization on these gives a composite picture of the organization’s culture. This is the basis for:
a. Shared understanding that members have.
b. How things are done.c. The way members are supposed to behave.
4. Culture Is a Descriptive Term
a. Organizational culture is concerned with how employees perceive its characteristics, not if they like them. Research on organizational culture has sought to measure how employees see their organization.
b. Job satisfaction seeks to measure affective responses to the work environment, such ashow employees feel about the organization’s expectations, reward practices, etc.
c. Organizational culture is descriptive, while job satisfaction is evaluative.
5. Do Organizations Have Uniform Cultures?
a. Individuals with different backgrounds or at different levels in the organization will tend to describe the organization’s culture in similar terms.
b. There can besubcultures. Most large organizations have a dominant culture and numerous sets of subcultures.
c. A dominant culture expresses the core values that are shared by a majority:
An organization’s culture is its dominant culture.
d. This macro view of culture that gives an organization its distinct personality.
e. Subcultures tend to develop in large organizations toreflect common problems, situations, or experiences that members face:

i. Defined by department designations and geographical separation
ii. It will include the core values plus additional values unique to members of the subculture.
iii. The core values are essentially retained but modified to reflect the subculture.
f. If organizationshad no dominant culture and were composed only of numerous subcultures, the value of organizational culture as an independent variable would be significantly lessened:

i. It is the “shared meaning” aspect of culture that makes it such a potent device for guiding and shaping behavior.
ii. We cannot ignore the reality that many organizations also havesubcultures that can influence the behavior of members.
6. Strong vs. Weak Cultures
a. The argument is that strong cultures have a greater impact on employee behavior and are more directly related to reduced turnover:

← The organization’s core values are both intensely held and widely shared.
← A strong culture will have a great influence on the behavior of itsmembers because the high degree of shared-ness and intensity creates an internal climate of high behavioral control.
b. One specific result of a strong culture should be lower employee turnover. A high agreement about what the organization stands for builds cohesiveness, loyalty, and organizational commitment.
7. Culture vs. Formalization
a. A strong organizational cultureincreases behavioral consistency. A strong culture can act as a substitute for formalization.
b. High formalization in an organization creates predictability, orderliness, and consistency.
c. A strong culture achieves the same end without the need for written documentation. Therefore, formalization and culture are two different roads to a common destination.
|What Do Cultures Do?...